Thursday, July 8, 2010

Ribs, my ribs!

Yesterday, I rode to West Oakland BART and took the train to the City. That was grand. On the way back, riding through traffic to transbay bus terminal, I saw a guy on a bike juking and dodging and diving around cars. That was impressive and aggressive, I thought. Suddenly, I found him ahead of me at the curb cutout to the bus station. Any self-respecting cycling bus rider just rides onto the sidewalk, then up the ramp into the bus terminal; certainly, that's what I was about to do. Not him. He stopped right in front of me. I tried going around him, but going around him involved jumping a curb at nearly zero miles an hour, which didn't end well, as one might have expected. I fell heavily onto my left arm, and the arm left a nice dent in my rib cage.

This morning ribs felt pretty good if I didn't turn suddenly to the left, reach with my left arm, spit, blow my nose, or breathe heavily. That was good enough to get out for a morning ride with my 5:00 a.m. group. I figured Brian rode with broken ribs and guys are racing the Tour right now, injured worse than I. So, I rode. After a while I got to the point of pain equilibrium -- the pain was tolerable and almost negligible if I didn't try to blow my nose, spit, or breathe heavily. Climbing standing up was quite painful, so I didn't stand up. My nethers didn't like that, so I had to stand up once in a while for relief. But, all things considered, it was a good 41 miles. So good that I reprised yesterday's commute. Hopefully, the ride to the bus will be less eventful, and I'll make sure not to get close to any bicycle outside the terminal.

P.S. The right knee that bugged me since before AA8 is much better today. I raised my saddle about 3mm last night and after today's ride the knee feels as good as new.